The PUP trade change is decent, but it’s not enough in my opinion. There needs to be an incentive to take map and use natural gold rather than just trading. I believe this should come in the form of trade taking a long time to pay off. Here is the gold per minute of the three types of trading:
This figures a trade route that takes 4 minutes to go down and back. with 300 gold per round trip (these are just random numbers for the graph). In green is the gold per minute using the trade trick (where you build markets next to the trading post). Red is the gold per minute without the trade trick, and blue is the gold per minute for trade in the PUP. If everyone uses the trade trick, the PUP change is a nerf to trade. However, I don’t believe this is enough of a nerf. I think we should be at the red line. It should take 4 minutes before you get anything from trade. This makes it very risky and requires that you have map control to take advantage of it.
My proposal is to reinstate the set home market mechanic, but take it so whenever the home market is changed the trader goes there first. Simple programming change: the trader must visit its home market before it goes to its destination, presumably to get the goods required to trade for gold. This would alleviate the issue of the trade trick. If attempted, the trader would pick up gold, then its home market would change, and it would go to its home market empty handed, then begin its route This be a bigger nerf to trade than the one implemented in the PUP. The other changes in the PUP make it so trade is easier to defend from raids, which I don’t like. Raiding should really mess up trade. Trade should be the exception, and not the rule.